The Recollection: Loren's Beginning
by DougGuns
Summary: An A/U of the final battle and beyond, from another character's point of view. What if a sudden change prompted someone else to act? Would the series have ended for the better or for worse?
1. Chapter 1 Mothers

My name is Loren. I'm not an Animorph, although I have their power to morph into any animal I can touch, for two hours at a time. I'm not a resistance fighter against the aliens invading Earth, although I did participate in a mission to destroy the Yeerk Pool, and I may have actually been one of the first human beings to encounter them. I'm not a teenager, although as far as I can recall, my life started about fourteen years ago.

Let me explain this properly. I was a grown woman with a husband and a son, or so I am told, until I lost my husband, my eyesight & my memory in a car accident. Because I was blinded and stricken with amnesia and had to learn basic life skills like dental hygiene all over from scratch, I lost my son too. He was sent to live with relatives, but I didn't know anyone from my family any longer. By the time I was released to live on my own, I had no way of finding the boy or his caretakers. It was not as hard as you might think, since all I knew of him was that someone had told me he was mine. I had a vague memory of a blonde little boy, but nothing else. I don't remember giving birth to him or holding him my arms or feeding him or changing him or singing him to sleep. And neither he nor the relatives he lived with ever contacted me until very recently.

I woke up one morning after getting harassed by some punks in a convenience store, to find one of them sitting in my kitchen. He revealed he was my long-lost son, Tobias, now a 16-year-old boy. He told me I was in danger and rescued me from the Yeerks, by giving me the power to morph. As a side effect of morphing back to my human body, I regained my eyesight, and the facial scars from my accident that I had only felt and never seen, disappeared. Now, we both lived in a valley populated by aliens with the parents of some of the other Animorphs, all of whom had fled here to avoid revenge from the Yeerks who resented our kids spending the last three years ruining all their schemes to take over the planet.

I had begun working on forging a new relationship with Tobias. It was a little hard, since he kept leaving the valley on missions, and the rest of the time, well, Tobias isn't big on sharing his pain. He talks freely about the good things in his life, but that's also a kind of short conversation. I think he's like that normally, but I also believe he doesn't want me to feel bad about having given him up, though I remember the pain in his voice when he first confronted me about it. Neither of our lives seem to have been very good in the years we spent apart, so there's not a lot we want to say about those days to each other.

One thing I did learn about him, when he was going over the details of the morphing power he shared with me, was that he had once spent too long in the form of a hawk, and become trapped, unable to morph back to human. He revealed that he had been given a one-time restoration of his power, and the ability to morph into a human boy the way his friends could morph into aliens and animals. He kept the specific details from me, but it must have been a strange exception.

Supposedly this happened not long after he first gained the power and then became trapped, which was almost three years ago, but his human form doesn't look much like the middle school boy he was when he started fighting the Yeerks. He looks like a sixteen year old, nearly as tall as a grown man, lanky but on his way to filling out. And the look in his eyes...all the Animorphs have it to a degree, and it's not a look you see on kids. Inside, they're all old men and women, veterans of brutal hand-to-hand combat, who've all seen things no adult should have to see, let alone children.

And now he's going again. Things are coming to a head. The Yeerks are getting ready to expand their invasion, as soon as they recover from the destruction of their Pool. The Andalites, the aliens who are supposed to be our saviors, are coming not to save the planet, but to save themselves, by destroying Earth to take the Yeerks down with us. The kids had some master plan to stop all this. They aren't sharing all the details, which probably means it's suicidal levels of dangerous, but what can we mere parents do? I might have the power to morph, but I'm still getting used to seeing again, I don't have anywhere near their experience in fighting or morphing, and I don't have the wide array of animals they've acquired in three years of fighting.

Anyway, after Tobias said good-bye and flew off, I wandered through the valley aimlessly, occasionally tossing a ball to Champ, my former seeing-eye dog. Most of the other parents were gathered together, talking. Sharing their fears and hopes for their children, trying not to think of their sons and daughters leaving them safe in this valley while they went to risk their lives.

I didn't want to talk with them. It's weird talking with other parents, when you're not really a parent. All anyone wants to talk about is the child they hope they have not kissed goodbye for the last time. But I didn't feel the same way. Sure, I wanted Tobias to come back so badly, but deep down inside, he was still a stranger to me. Losing him would be like losing something I never really had, and it would not compare to the loss of one of the other parents. Being around them made me aware of this stuff and made me feel worse because I didn't feel worse. Because I would not grieve for the same reasons they would or in the same way, and I felt bad about that, like I was an unnatural mother. It all got to be too much, so I usually went off on my own during these endless waits. Tobias would spot me when he returned anyway.

Eventually, one of the giant Hork-Bajir who made this valley a permanent address approached me.

"You are mother of Tobias?" the alien asked me.

"Yes, I'm Loren," I replied, wondering what the Hork-Bajir wanted. I had barely said two words to any of them since fleeing to the valley. One of the few flashes of memory that remained to me from before the accident had been an image of a Hork-Bajir and the terrifying certainty that these creatures were enemies. My amnesia, unfortunately, made me forget that most humans had never seen such things and when I attempted to share those memories with my doctors, I ended up being committed to a mental facility for delusions. Now that I thought about it though, from what Eva had told me about the Yeerk invasion, I might have actually been one of the first human beings ever to see a Hork-Bajir.

Not for the first time, I racked my brain trying to dredge up any old memories at all, to figure out what sort of life I had before the accident. Did Tobias end up in this life because of what our family had been up to back when we were a family? If we were a family…damn it.

"Ket Halpak is name," offered the Hork-Bajir helpfully. "I have daughter, Toby."

"Oh, wow. Did you know that's a human name, too?" I asked.

"Yes. She name for Tobias. Tobias save Ket Halpak, save _kalashi_ Jara Hammee. Ket Halpak and Jara Hammee free. Free to have _kwatnoj _who is free. Free because of Tobias."

"Tobias saved you guys? He saved your lives?" I was surprised to have something in common with an alien.

"We escape with head voice. Jara Hammee grab Ket Halpak when Yeerk out of head, and run down tunnel, come to door. We out in Earth trees, but lost. Yeerks chase, but bird tell us where to go. Save Jara Hammee, but I caught. Later, bird fight Visser Three and I escape. Bird is Tobias, Tobias morph me so Yeerks chase him and Jara Hammee and Ket Halpak escape. Jara's father named for Andalite hero, so Jara Hammee say 'Ket Halpak, we name _kwatnoj _for human-bird hero who save her mother.'"

It was a little silly, but I was so proud. Tobias had saved both these…people. Even though I didn't raise him, it still felt good to hear all of this. "And then he brought you here? To the other Hork-Bajir?"

"No. We first. Save others who head-voice free. Later Jara Hammee and others go take back more Hork-Bajir from Yeerks. When Toby grow big, she make plans to free more, protect home. All because Tobias save us."

"So where are Toby and Jara Hammee now? Are they all right?" I asked hesitantly. The Yeerks had already attacked the Hork-Bajir once, and forced them to leave their last home. I'd hate to think their rescue had come to nothing.

"Jara Hammee, Toby lead Hork-Bajir fighters. Jara Hammee is Elder, Toby Hammee is Seer. They go to help Animorph friends. Save Earth from Yeerks and _hruthin_ – Andalites."

So we were in the same boat… we each had a child in the fight. This was getting depressing, it seemed like I couldn't escape conversations like this. Something about Ket Halpak's little story nagged at my thoughts, like a memory I couldn't quite bring back, so I probed a little more.

"What's this 'head-voice' you keep talking about?" I wondered out loud before I could stop myself. It was probably some primitive alien religious thing…

"Head voice tells Jara Hammee and Ket Halpak when to run to escape Yeerks. Head-voice tells Tobias how to save us. Tobias says head voice not nice. Head voice only cares about plans, not Hork-Bajir. Head voice say he help Tobias, but trick him instead."

"So this voice just talks to people to tell them what to do?"

"Maybe. Jara Hammee only hear head voice to escape, not hear since. Tobias say he care about own plan, not care about Hork-Bajir or human friends."

"That's interesting. Do you know who belongs to the 'head voice'? Where it comes from?"

"Tobias say his name is 'Ellimist'. Ellimist trick Animorphs to help him sometimes. He change things so different things happen-"

If Ket Halpak said anything after that, I didn't hear it. My head was filled with a dizzying feeling, and suddenly I-I knew! I remembered thought-speak voices talking about time travel and Ellimists, and a glowing sphere and then a larger voice than any being I could imagine speaking half to me and half to itself, a memory more than sixteen years old.

I AM SORRY, LOREN, BUT THIS WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE. YOU WILL ONLY REMEMBER WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN.

* * *

**Author's Note:** This is not open-ended like my other fic, I am just working through the battle scene in the middle, which I am not so good at writing. I should have the rest of it fairly soon. Thanks for reading.


	2. Chapter 2 Memories

Like wind blowing away a fog, recalling those words brought things pouring back. I still didn't remember everything. I couldn't remember the accident or grasp any clear recollection of my life right before it. I could not remember the husband who died with my memories. But other memories came flooding back into my head, memories I now knew, without being told, had been stolen from me. With that voice in my head all those years past had come the essence of what was being done to me and why, as well as the knowledge that I would forget the reasons and the loss, that new memories would take their place. But those new memories, those lies, and the life built on them were wiped out by the accident and what had been taken - what had been _stolen_ - from my head to cover the thief's involvement in my life…those older, lost memories came back.

Childhood came back with them. I recalled my father and I remembered my mother telling me how he was different now, because of the war. I remembered a brother and a sister, and lots of fights. I remember my father being gone and everyone blaming everyone else, a family barely speaking to one another, and a girlhood spent alone, or on a softball diamond. And I remembered the aliens.

The Skrit Naa who took me and took that guy, Chapman. The attack on their ship and all the adventures that followed. The Time Matrix that must have somehow protected my mind from this…this Ellimist who sought to hide the fact that he had stolen my husband to fight his war for him. I knew all this as surely as I knew how many steps from my bed to the toilet bowl or the shower, as surely as I had once known my own name.

I became aware that I was kneeling down, my palms flat on the grass, with Ket bending over me, asking if I was all right in a concerned tone of voice. I hastily reassured her, letting her know I had just remembered something and needed to think about it. As I spoke, I let my hand fall on hers, and on an impulse, concentrated on her the way I remembered doing with Tobias the day he gave me my morphing power. Ket seemed to relax for a moment before shaking it off and resuming her interest in my well-being. I finally convinced her I was not sick, that I was just worried about my…about _our_ children. She let me go before leaping up to a tree, I guess to eat or something herself.

My mind was whirling as I wandered back toward the huts where we humans lived. I remembered learning I was pregnant with Tobias, and I remembered my married life with Elfangor and my dreams of having a child someday. Before my sudden recollection, Tobias had been this kid I liked and admired on a short acquaintance, whom I was interested in because we knew I had given birth to him. There had not been anything deeper, thanks to my amnesia, but now I remembered those early days and it was like a connection snapping into place.

There were some vague and fuzzy memories of pregnancy, childbirth & holding a baby, watching a toddler, but they were not as strong as the restored memories of Elfangor. I supposed that was because of the natural brain damage I had suffered, and without that _Ellimist's_ interference, my mind was dredging them up to the point it was still capable. The important thing though, was now there was an emotional connection. Now I _knew_ that Tobias was my son, my baby, the last thing I had of the happiest days of my life, I felt it all the way down in my heart.

And, like all the other parents in this valley, I had let my child go off to fight a war. That did not sit well all of a sudden. For the newly cured blind woman who had been all but helpless for as long as she could remember, it had been one thing, but now I remembered the teenager who wrested a gun from her alien captors and turned it on them, I remembered using the Time Matrix alongside Elfangor, and the feeling of a Yeerk crawling into my ear. Now, I felt like I had let that scrappy girl down.

I had the morphing power just like the kids did! For the parents, the _other _parents, maybe there was nothing they could do, they were too new to all of this to be brought into the fight, even if we had not lost the morphing cube. But I had fought the Yeerks, had traveled through space and time and had dealt with aliens before. There was no excuse for me to sit out this fight.

I regretted the kids leaving before my memories were restored, regretted missing the chance to help them, to protect them, to repay their rescue of me. I wanted to be there to look out for sweet Cassie, and Marco, whose voice I heard with Tobias when they pretended to be punks while watching over me before my rescue. I wanted to help Jake, whose own parents had been made Controllers and could do nothing to protect or comfort or care for him, and I wanted to get to know Rachel, who in some ways reminded me of myself, when I was a kid mixed up with aliens and interstellar wars. I wanted to fight beside Ax, who was so much like another young Andalite I had once known…maybe it was a little racist of me, or my mind playing tricks, but it seemed that now I saw a resemblance between him and Elfangor. I suppose all aliens look alike to humans, but it was a nice to think that there might be a connection…I had heard Ax mention Elfangor as if he was a great hero among his people, and I wanted to talk to him, and ask what he knew about my husband and his fate.

But most of all, I wanted to protect and save my son, my baby, my brave hawk, who had flown at a helicopter armed with rayguns (_no, Dracon beams_, my restored memory prompted me) to give me a chance to get away. That abrupt surge of feeling that had driven me to push him out of the way, to take a blast that would have hit him – that feeling was almost a constant now. I felt it all the time and his being away, fighting on some alien mothership to save our whole world the way he saved me, it was the most terrifying and frustrating thing I had ever felt.

It was worse than waking blind in a world I only half-remembered and no longer understood, all those years ago, and in a weird way it was better than anything I had ever experienced. I was a Mom. Before, that was a fact without any personal reference, like knowing my blood type or birthdate. I had just been a mother. Now, it was who I was – the central fact of my existence.

I was also a widow, but the grief for my once-forgotten husband was muted and buried under the concern for our son. I let myself recall all my adventures with Elfangor and the other Andalites, the older boss, Alloran, who had spoken kindly about my father and seemed to understand his problems after the war, and Arbron, a kid like Elfangor and me, who got left behind for some…suddenly I remembered Jake briefing everyone on his disappearance when the kids came back from their last attack on the Yeerk Pool reconstruction site. He had spoken of an Andalite trapped in Taxxon form, called Arbron, who had claimed to know Elfangor, and Ax had confirmed that acquaintance. I absently wondered again how Ax knew my husband, but pushed that aside to consider the possibility that an old friend was here on this planet. Maybe he could help somehow… he was involved in this attack plan Jake made, though I did not understand the details. It had to be worth a shot. I mean, if he was trapped in a morph, he was not going to be sneaking onto the spaceship, right?

I concentrated on the hawk inside me and began to change. Champ twitched and began whining, but before my mouth disappeared into a beak, I told him firmly to calm down. I shrunk to only a fraction of my height, and feathers sprouted all over my body. My fingers and toes spread out and grew much longer, and skin rippled out to cover the fingers with feathers growing from them even as they expanded. My longer toes, on the other hand hardened and curved into talons and my legs withered down to be suitable for perching or grabbing, rather than running or walking. I spread my wings and began flapping until I rose high enough to catch a gust of warm air blowing upward.

The hawk's mind took over and I locked my wings and circled higher and higher, with my dog gazing upward in confusion, before lowering his head to his paws and lying down. I felt a pang at leaving him like this, after he had been my constant companion and guardian, but I knew someone would care for him. Naomi's daughter, Sara, Rachel's little sister, had been enamored of him like children are with cute furry animals, and Champ would never hurt a human being. I knew even if anything happened to me, he'd be taken care of, and besides, my concern for the dog was a drop in the bucket next to the newfound worry for my lost, found and remembered son.


	3. Chapter 3 Auld Acquaintance

I flew low over the new pit the Yeerks had begun digging. This was where Jake had made contact with the Taxxons, so I began shouting out Arbron's name in thought-speech. Out of the corner of my eye – and when you're a hawk that's no minor detail – I spotted a couple of Hork-Bajir moving out into the open brandishing Dracon beams. A loud TSEWWW sound split the air and a beam burned past me. If I had not flinched instinctively at the sight of the weapons, it would have hit me. Following the hawk's instincts, I twisted and dove, looking for a tunnel mouth. I darted into the first one I spotted and landed in the earth.

I began demorphing thinking my human form would be better suited for the tunnel. As I grew to human size, I began hearing a skritching rumble growing more intense as it got closer to me. By the time I was finished, I was no longer alone in the tunnel. A Taxxon was staring down at me from its reared up height.

{You are no Animorph, human. I am certain you are much too old.}

Thought-speech! An ability I was positive no Taxxon possessed. And the voice sounded familiar. I couldn't be sure, it had been years, but I took a chance. "Arbron?"

{Yes. I was told of a mind-voice calling my name, and I saw you morphing. Who are you and how do you know me?}

"Wow, I'm kind of insulted, Arbron. I guess you've had lots of human women come visit you on your home world. I suppose I was just one of many, many girls you rescued from Skrit Naa captivity?" I took a chance with the smart-aleck comments, but I remembered Arbron as something of a joker…

{I recall…Loren? Is it truly you? How did you come to acquire the morphing technology?}

Smiling in relief I nodded to him. "I got it from the Animorphs, Arbron. That's why I'm here. I want to know about their mission and if there is anything I can do to help." I filled in the bare bones of my recent past – how I had been injured and lost my memory and sight and the Animorphs had used their Andalite device to give me the ability to morph, which cured my handicaps.

He understood how that worked, but was reluctant to give any details in return. Finally, Arbron admitted that he had not been a part of whatever Jake's plan was. He didn't even know what they were attempting, beyond sneaking onto the Yeerks' Pool ship with the help of a Yeerk traitor who had Jake's brother for a host.

I sat down, slumped against the tunnel wall in defeat.

{It may be, however, that you can help me with a task. It is not normally one with which I would trust my Taxxon brothers' control or capability, but a brave, morph-capable human could be of immeasurable help.} The Taxxon lowered his head to a level with mine.

It was kind of creepy looking at that mouth with the needle-sharp teeth, but I looked him in the eyes and took a deep breath. "What do you want me to do?"

{The reason for my assistance to the Animorphs, aside from our dissatisfaction with the Yeerk alliance, is to obtain the morphing power and free my people of the insatiable hunger that is our curse. Jake was very frank about having lost the _Escafil _device to the Yeerks, and I suspect the Andalites will not be so willing as the Animorphs to honor the arrangement if Jake and his companions cannot recover the device. They will have their hands full in their fight anyway to simply achieve their goals on the Pool Ship. So, rather than count on the humans' overwhelming success or the largesse of my former people, I would like to retrieve the device the Yeerks stole, for our own use.}

"Okay." I got to my feet. "I guess you want me to help you infiltrate the Yeerks' security and steal it back? I can try, but I don't have a lot of experience with this. I mean, if it's locked away, I can't crack the safe or hot wire the alarm system. I couldn't manage that with Earth technology, even if I hadn't spent more than a decade falling behind on electronics while I was blind. There's no way I can do anything about alien stuff."

{Indeed. I will come with you. My own technical skills should be more than sufficient to defeat Yeerk security measures. All I require is someone who can go where a Taxxon cannot. Have you a Hork-Bajir morph?}

"Absolutely."

A few minutes later, we emerged from a tunnel near a huge depression in the ground, with the massive Pool ship looming in the background. In the mouth of a nearby tunnel, waited a group of Taxxons.

We approached them, and one turned to communicate something to Arbron in their own language. {Here it comes,} he said to me. Suddenly, a large shape like a mechanical insect lunged out of the tunnel, stopping in the mouth. The other Taxxons clustered around it, chattering to each other before the same one spoke to Arbron again.

{All is prepared. Come, Loren. We will be taking this Bug fighter.} In almost no time at all, we were shooting up through the air.

"Where to now?" I asked Arbron.

{There.} He pointed forward with a single claw. Looking out the window, I saw a menacing shape ahead. It looked like a giant, flying battle axe, traveling over the ground, handle first, with Dracon beams blasting the ground below. {My Yeerk counterpart, a renegade dissatisfied with Visser One's leadership, is in command of that vessel. He was to assist the Animorphs somehow with their raid on the Pool ship. Now, he pretends to fight my people's diversionary attack, but we have made arrangements. His crew is loyal to him, and they are merely putting on a show for the Visser. He slipped, however, and revealed he has possession of the morphing device. I intend to board the Blade ship and retrieve it ourselves.}

So we were heading to a Yeerk warship. Okay, I could do this. Arbron knew what he was doing and was an experienced soldier. I had morphing powers, and as long as I didn't die instantly, I could morph to heal any injuries I took. I could blend right in as a Hork-Bajir, and had instant disguise powers. This was going to go okay. I just had to convince myself…

Our Bug fighter docked with the Bade ship easily. {Yeerk security} Arbron said contemptuously. {Sometimes I think humans are more clever or at least adaptable.) Once inside, we left the fighter, I in my Hork-Bajir morph, and Arbron as a Taxxon, of course. According to him that was the usual combination for a Bug fighter crew. We sauntered to a computer terminal like we belonged there and Arbron began accessing the system. I stood by, trying to watch in every direction for suspicious Controllers and occasionally pacing away and back, just so it didn't look like I was hanging around.  
I had thought I would be scared and nervous when I agreed to come with Arbron, but I was finding it easy to keep those feelings under control. I had been through some scary experiences when I was younger, around when I first met aliens, and more recently with the other parents and Animorphs when infiltrated a military base. Once I realized that I had been in similar situations before, I began feeling a lot more confident. After all, I had morphing powers. I was in the form of a large, powerful alien, covered with blades, and tough as nails. I could handled whatever we needed to, especially with an alien expert at my side.

Finally, Arbron seemed to find what he was looking for. {The Escafil device is actually being studied by a Yeerk scientist in the on-board workshop} he told me. {We simply have to access the workshop, retrieve the device and return to our fighter. We can be away very easily. The Yeerks have insisted that the device be guarded at all times, but with the advantage of surprise, we can take it. Let's get to work, my friend.}


	4. Chapter 4 Yeerk Technology

It took a few minutes of walking through the corridors. There were mostly human controllers on this ship, with very few Taxxons or Hork-Bajir, so we kind of stuck out. I wondered about that in private thought-speak to Arbron. He told me that the Yeerk head of security had loaded the Blade ship with his personal followers and allies, while Visser One had taken his usual crew to the Pool ship with him. {Maybe that's a good thing,} I suggested. {They probably won't fly the ship as well as the Visser's guys, right?}

{If only that were true,} said Arbron. {However, the command crew that mans the bridge is only the tip of the iceberg, as you humans would say. Much of the real work in operating the ship is done by the technical crew in the secondary bridge. They are so absorbed in their work that they don't have anything to do with the factionalism of the Yeerk officers, and just serve whoever happens to be in charge. It is a sort of survival trait for the species – after all, they'd never advance if everyone who failed the Vissers was abruptly killed. There would be no competent people left. Instead, those who specialize in their jobs do so under the authority of someone with ambitions. That Yeerk is the one who gets the rewards and promotions, and who pays for failures with his life. The Yeerk leadership barely notices the specialists who make things happen.

{That is how my own people and our resistance movement survive – we stay below the notice of the leaders. They might not be aware of this, but the Animorphs have no doubt benefited as well from this functionality. When they raid Yeerk projects and facilities, they leave behind survivors who barely notice anything but the damage that was done, without putting together a lot of details on what took place. That is undoubtedly why they lasted so long without the Yeerks realizing they were human. Any of the clues they might have left, or common behaviors, passed unnoticed by the rank-and-file, while the officers were busy getting killed in battle or in punishment for their failures. Yeerks do not have a high regard for the value of individuals, since their very biology dictates that individuals die to propagate the species. The few who do think in terms of individual beings think of their own individual selves first and foremost. They are the ones who seek advancement and position, and desire the best hosts they can get. They are the ones who become warriors and leaders and scientists. Meanwhile, the engineers and technicians and laborers do what they are told and keep the whole empire running smoothly.}

It was a strange new look at the Yeerks for me. I didn't remember anyone saying anything like this when I had been travelling with the Andalites years back when I first met Arbron. When I commented on this to him, he pointed out that the Andalites had no way of understanding this. He was able to grasp it all, because of his unique position as a member of a race that served the Yeerks, without being controlled by any particular Yeerk, and also having the brain of yet another species, which gave him an outsider's analytical perspective, instead of just accepting things as the way they are, the way most Taxxons did.

It might have turned into a complex and fascinating discussion about inter-species psychological differences, but we arrived in the section of the ship where the Yeerks were keeping their stolen morphing device. The door was guarded by two Hork-Bajir, but I walked up to one of them and hit him in the face without giving him time to think. He reeled back from the blow and reached to grab me, along with his partner when -TSEWW- Arbron's Dracon beam dropped him. His partner drew his own beam and spun to face Arbron, and I smashed into him, throwing his aim off. He whirled back and clipped me in the side of my head with a powerful backhand blow that gouged my face and made my right eye go dark. I staggered back, desperately trying to keep my remaining good eye on him, but a second shot from Arbron stunned him as well. {Quickly, Loren, you must demoprh.}

I did just that, and as I returned to my human form, my vision was restored. {Acquire one of the guards,} Arbron suggested. {Then you can pretend to be staying on guard duty while I search the facility inside.} I bent to touch the guard who I had hit first, but felt nothing. No matter how hard I concentrated, I could not recapture the feeling from when I had acquired the hawk, or Ket Halpak.

I tried to acquire the other guard, but with no more luck. I even tried to morph into one of them, thinking that perhaps I had acquired them without realizing it, but nothing happened. Arbron could not explain it, though he dismissed the various questions I thought up as possible reasons. {No, Loren. Even if they have been acquired by another morpher, you should be able to acquire them. No, you can acquire more than one Hork-Bajir. No, even if they are morph-capable, you should still be able to acquire them…}

I realized that last one was true, since I had acquired Tobias, and there was another former blind girl living in the valley who had acquired Rachel. Eventually, we just dragged the bodies into the room with us, hoping that no one would come by and wonder where they were.

Inside the room, there were several computers and what looked like small hatches in the walls, like cupboards or something. Arbron scuttled over to one of the computers and began tapping away with his peculiarly dexterous claws, while I kept an eye on both the door and our unconscious captives. I also kept the Dracon beam I had grabbed from the second Hork-Bajir pointed at the two of them. I had only managed to hit them by surprise and because one was more worried about Arbron with his gun, and he still knocked me silly. Having a powerful morph was not the same as having combat experience, and the Yeerks had plainly left capable fighters on guard duty.

All my earlier confidence was shaken, and I realized on a whole new level that I was in way over my head. {How's it coming, Arbron?} I asked hopefully.

{Hmm…? Oh, forgive me Loren, I found the records of the studies the Yeerks were performing on the _Escafil_ device…}

{The who? I thought you were looking for where they kept it! We know what it does, and you're an Andalite. Shouldn't you know how to work it? What do a bunch of Yeerk studies have to do with anything?}

{It has to do with how I can use the device. The Yeerks have been making extensive studies of morphing technology for the last three years. Due no doubt in part to the nuisance our friends the Animorphs have made of themselves. They found ways to adapt various technology and biological process to track the energy from the z-space extrusion that…} He glanced back at me, and seemed to realize that I was not remotely interested in technical explanations that pushed back the minute we left this ship.

{Anyway} he continued with a mental pulse that seemed to be the thought-speak equivalent of clearing your throat {they also developed a counter-radiation to the particular energies of the morphing process, and were even able to concentrate these energies in a controlled emission. This so-called Anti-Morphing Ray was a significant project until it failed and the two administrators, and their human scientist hosts, were fed to … executed.

{However, as I told you, the real researchers continued their work, except that no leadership Yeerks were willing to take up the project and it languished until the Visser's security chief captured the _Escafil_ device. With the actual mechanism to study, they were able to build on their previous research exponentially. They have found a way to fundamentally alter the base morph of a living creature!}

I was confused. {Doesn't the morphing power already do that?}

{Not at all,} insisted Arbron. {The only way that happens is in the case of a _nothlit_ like me. And even then, there are lingering artifacts of the former base morph, such as my ability to use thought-speak. For a morph-capable being, the morph is an artificial construct of z-space matter that takes a couple of human hours to fully take on the permanent molecular state of a biological organism. That's why there is a time limit on morphing. Once your morph has "solidified" for lack of a better term, you cannot banish it to z-space, but you no longer have the _Escafil _function in that body to alter your form again. That is how a _nothlit_ becomes trapped in a morph.}

{What the Yeerks have discovered is a way to alter the base morph, rather than substitute a z-space construct. That means that the being to which this new function is applied now has a whole new form in which he can acquire morphs and from which he changes into those morphs. For example, a Yeerk in human morph could use the morphing cube on himself. The Yeerk's new form would be a human, and he could then morph into any other form he acquired, including his former Yeerk body, to take a host or swim in the Yeerk pool, for up to two hours at least, and then demorph to human and take other forms as needed.}

I had a sudden feeling and glanced down at the unconscious guards. {Indeed,} Arbron said. He moved over to a machine hanging from the ceiling on an articulated metallic arm, and touching a screen, caused it to move down and point a disc at the guards. Suddenly they began the erratic process of morphing – or demorphing in this case – in completely different ways, but both ending up as humans after a couple of minutes. {It seems the Anti-Morphing Ray did work after all. I wonder why they thought otherwise?}

{So the reason I couldn't acquire one of those guys is that they were humans in morph?} I asked.

{Rather they are Yeerks, who had altered their base form into humans, and then morphed into Hork-Bajir for their guard duty. It makes sense, especially from the point of view of space travel. Humans take up less room, consume far fewer resources, both in oxygen and food than Hork-Bajir or Taxxons, and don't need a Yeerk pool or Kandrona. And they can simply reverse the process when they wish to be normal Yeerks and take hosts for espionage or simply to enjoy their natural state.}

He turned to the unconscious guards and blasted them with his Dracon beam. The bodies both vanished. {This is an incredibly dangerous power to leave in Yeerk hands. Only the research team knows of this so far, but once the current battle is over, it will no doubt spread to the commanders of this renegade group. They may be allies to my people and the Animorphs at this moment, but I cannot trust them. I may no longer have the form of an Andalite, and perhaps I am bending the law of Seerow's Kindness by giving the morphing power to my fellow Taxxons, but I will not break it outright by allowing the Yeerks to surpass Andalites with our own technology. I am honor-bound to prevent this from falling into their hands.}


	5. Chapter 5 Duty & Loss

Arbron set about blasting the ray and its mechanical arm into thin air with precise shots of his Dracon beam. He moved again to the terminal, looked something up and then scrawled to a compartment almost concealed by the other equipment, opened it after a moment's delay with the controls on the outside, and pulled out a blue cube. He placed this into a satchel that was hanging on the wall, and turned to the computers again. To my surprise, he held the satchel out to me.

{I am entering a…you humans would call it a virus…into the Yeerk system to destroy all files with any mention of the Yeerk or Andalite technical terminology for the morphing process. I have the identities of the other researchers involved on this project, and I will eliminate them as well. Loren, this will be dangerous. I ask that you return to the Bug fighter and if I do not make it back, take the _Escafil _device to my people.}

{Your people?} I asked. {Which one?}

{Of course. Please see that the Taxxons have access to the device so that they might take their new forms. The Animorphs understand our wishes in this matter and have promised their aid.} I nodded and took the bag, draping the shoulder strap over my head so it hung across my torso to the opposite hip. {And then, please see that it gets back to the Andalites. Our scientists should be able to reverse engineer the improvements the Yeerks have made and replicate them with other devices.}

I promised I would, and when I pointed out that I would still need Arbron to fly me back to Earth, he sent to my mind a series of images that showed me how to activate the automatic launch sequence on the Bug fighter and set the controls to return me to the tunnels where his people had concealed the fighter in the first place.

I hesitated for a moment and then stepped forward to hug my old friend. {Be careful, Arbron. } I didn't offer to go with him. I was not all that eager to fight after my own inadequacies had been demonstrated by the guards, and especially not to risk my life to keep Andalite secrets when I could be taking the cube back to Earth to help people.

{Do not worry. It will not be difficult. There is only the head of the research team on this vessel, and he is standing by to assist in the bio-repair facility until the Blade ship stands down from combat readiness. The other members of the team are in the pool on the Pool ship while their hosts are being loaned out to warriors and combat support technicians. }

{Well then, why go after the one on this ship, when his helpers are out of our reach?} I wondered. {Or do you intend to try to get them in the Pool ship?"

He hesitated a moment before replying. {That will not be necessary. The security chief who commands this vessel intends to attack the Pool ship and destroy it by surprise. He holds a serious grudge against the Visser for his lack of advancement and intends to desert this war with the power of the Blade ship and the _Escafil _device for his own. }

I was shocked. I couldn't breathe for a second. {How do you know all of this?}

{Among the other things I have been doing since I first hacked into the Yeerk systems on this ship has been monitoring their internal communications, to make sure they were not betraying the agreement and firing on my people in earnest. Simple analysis of the pattern of orders reveals that they are readying an attack on a powerful target, but with a high degree of confidence. They are also preparing for an interstellar journey in the very near future. The only possibility that fits is an attack on the Pool ship, which is the only vessel in the solar system to pose that level of challenge to a Blade ship. The Yeerk commander spoke openly to the Animorphs of his intention to betray the Visser and desert. His betrayal of the Animorphs notwithstanding, I believe he does intend to follow through with his assassination of the Visser.}

I stepped closer to him, fists clenched and wrist blades raised threateningly. {The Animorphs were going to be on that Pool ship! They need it to prevent the Andalites from destroying that planet down there which your people live on! If this traitor destroys the ship, we lose the kids and the planet.}

The Taxxon reared up defensively. {If both Yeerk vessels are gone, I can communicate with the Andalite fleet and dissuade them from sterilizing Earth. With the support of the Taxxons and the free Hork-Bajir, and the evidence of military support among the humans, it will be a simple matter to convince them to alter their operation to cleaning up the Yeerk remnant. Remember, the old Yeerk pool is gone. With the loss of the Pool ship, all the Yeerks in this system are doomed sooner or later. That is part of why I must contain the knowledge of the Yeerk morphing discoveries – to save your home world, Loren.}

{What. About. The. CHILDREN?!} I demanded with all the urgency and anger I could project.

{I-I am sorry, Loren.} He slumped down a bit. I wasn't sure what that meant in Taxxon body language, but his thought-speak felt regretful and sad. {The Yeerk traitor believes them killed. He turned them over to the Visser, who fed them to a Taxxon. Their mission has no hope of success.}

I staggered back, feeling like the floor had disappeared from under my feet. Had my recollection come too late? Is that how I broke free of the Ellimists' memory-tricks? Had they given up concealing things because my son had died and there was no longer any point, because I could not interfere in their manipulations any more? I remembered the words Ket Halpak had spoken a few hours earlier. _"Tobias says head voice not nice. Head voice only cares about plans…Head voice say he help Tobias, but trick him instead….Tobias say he care about own plan, not care about Hork-Bajir or human friends…Ellimist trick Animorphs to help him sometimes." _

{Loren, I am more sorry than I can say, but please, you must ensure those brave warriors did not die in vain. For our friend, Elfangor and for the humans who bear his legacy to your people, please take the box back to Earth and save my people.}

I listened numbly, stumbling along as he pushed me into the corridor ahead of him and gently nudged my in the direction we had come. I started walking on my own and after a while, I became aware that Arbron was no longer with me, having gone off, I guess to murder another Yeerk and make this whole grand stupid plan come true. I didn't know what he meant by Elfangor's legacy, but Elfangor's son was dead and his friends and comrades with him.

As I wandered through the corridors, deserted by the Yeerks who were no doubt all occupying battle stations and doing important spaceship stuff, my mind kept replaying the few memories I had of my boy. The voice in the permanent darkness of my kitchen, the thought-speak in my head, the feel of feathers under my hands, and then the sight of a fiercely glaring hawk as I first used the morphing power he had given me and used the far more wondrous power of sight for the first time in years. I had thought him lost to me forever, and then he was back. I had thought him doomed on that same day, but I managed to intercept the Dracon beam and save him. I thought I was dying until he talked me through demorphing. I had thought him lost when he disappeared for a couple of days, only to return with stories about rescuing the governor and recruiting her to the cause. It just didn't seem fair to have him dangled in front of me again, only to be lost for good. At least before, I had the hope that his life was happier without a crazy blind woman. Now, I wasn't crazy or blind, and only today, I had remembered to love him again – just when I could be the mother he needed but had never had, he was dead and beyond any hope.

Or was he? Tobias and his friends had survived three years in a war against impossible odds. They had been careful enough to avoid discovery or betrayal all this time, could they really have been foolish enough to be betrayed at the last moment by a Yeerk ally? They had fooled the Yeerks for so long, who was to say they had not fooled them again? No. There had to be a chance. I had to have remembered everything for a reason. I was not going to sit back and give up on Tobias. He had come through impossible odds even in the brief time I had spent with him, and from things he said, that was hardly scratching the surface of what he had survived. Maybe there was a chance he had survived. If he had, I was _not_ going to let these Yeerks blow him out of the sky!


	6. Chapter 6 A Fight

Before he had gone on without me, Arbron had put a map in my head, sort of a plan of the Blade ship, telling me how to get to the hanger where he had left our Bug fighter. I remembered sort of where the bridge was on the ship, relative to that part, and I started in that general direction.

It took me a little while, but soon I found a long corridor that, from the looks of it, could only lead down the neck or handle of the Blade ship. I sprinted down as fast as I could until I came to a broad fork each leading to a door or hatch or whatever you called it, with two Hork-Bajir guards at the place where the corridor split.

"Andalites!" I told them, speaking aloud for the first time since morphing a Hork-Bajir. "Andalites are on bridge!"

The guards exchanged a glance, "That noise…you think?" asked the one on my right. The other one nodded and stepped closer to me, while the guard who spoke moved down to the door on his side and keyed the control next to it. I gasped and jumped back, and for a moment, the one guarding me glanced in that direction. I whipped the Dracon beam up, stuck it in his chest and fired. He vanished, cutting off a shout. The other guard turned as the hatch started to slide open, but I was already on him, and a lucky blow of my wrist blade punched through his neck. I stopped at the edge of the door, then peered around the frame.

I was looking into the bridge of the ship. It looked like a similar setup to the old Star Trek show, but with consoles standing around the room and in the center of the forward wall, a huge view screen. My own doorway was in the rear of the room, at a sideways angle, and on the opposite side of the rear was the door from the other fork. I guess they were there to let crew members on and off without a chokepoint.

I had not believed the guards would accept the ruse I had thought up on the spur of the moment, but now I could see why they might have believed there was fighting. Several of the free-standing consoles were smashed, there was a hideous-looking half-morphed body sticking out from behind one position, and a bunch of animals gathered around the open area in the middle of the room. From my angle, I could not see what was on the view screen, but I wondered what the Animorphs were doing here, and was about to call out to them… but I stopped.

I had never seen or heard of them morphing these animals before. There was some large, bull-like creature, a polar bear and a couple of big cats. When they practiced battles and defenses with the Hork-Bajir back in the valley the kids used things like tigers and brown bears and wolves and gorillas. Or aliens. Ax always seemed to stick with his normal form, and remembering Elfangor's attitude, I found it hard to imagine an Andalite going into battle, especially on board an enemy warship as anything other than himself.

I had asked Tobias once why they all didn't use the same animal for fighting, why they didn't just pick the best battle morph and all use that. Marco had overheard me and muttered "We tried that once, it didn't work so good," with a quick glance at Rachel, like he didn't want her to hear him. Tobias had gone on to clarify that they all had morphs they preferred and that worked best for them, and that they didn't like changing up because an unfamiliar morph could be tricky, especially in a dangerous situation like combat. I was fairly sure that part was intended to keep me safe in the camp and not ask to join them on their missions, but I had let it slide. It was a good point. It still was a good point, and in the bag still slung across my torso was the morphing cube that the Yeerks had been using to give the Animorphs fits. If any Yeerks would be morphed it would be Yeerks on this ship, and if they were all morphed large dangerous animals, it could not be good.

As these thoughts raced through my head, I saw the polar bear rear up slightly, raising his paw to smash something on the ground. I stepped into the doorway, and fired my Dracon beam at him. Rather than hit him square on, and vaporize him, the beam grazed his upper limb and struck the screen, which exploded in a shower of sparks and fragments. The beasts all spun to face me, and suddenly I felt like this had been a really, really bad idea. I didn't see anyone else there, so maybe this was some sort of leadership dispute I had interrupted. I had no way of knowing if I had changed things for better or for worse, but I was committed now.

A cougar or lioness or something leaped one of the still-standing consoles and raced at me, a tawny streak across the smooth material of the deck. I fired a couple more times with the Dracon beam, but missed her, and she leapt up straight at me, without the slightest noticeable hitch or crouch, just one moment running across the floor and the next, flying through the air. I brought the beam up for another futile shot, but the cat was already past the hand holding the gun with claws sinking into my chest. As I crashed backwards, I distantly heard a deep bellow of animal outrage, like I had hit something again, but then I was preoccupied with the cat clawing at my chest and snarling and snapping at my face and throat.

I batted at the golden fury atop my prone form ineffectually, but succeeded in protecting my face a little. I crossed one arm over my throat, and now the terrible jaws were getting a mouthful of arm and wrist blade. Then, in despair, I felt knives digging into my gut. _The hind claws, she's ripping out my intestines. _I heaved up with my forearm, and jabbed into the cat's side again and again with my wristblade on the other arm. I pushed up again and again with the blocking arm, and suddenly I realized the biting had stopped. The cat was twisting and yowling weakly and trying to pull away. The claws were still sinking into my abdomen, but just with weight, they were no longer ripping or tearing.

I gave a heave with my whole upper body and twisted at my waist, pushing the huge carnivore off my body. I struggled into a sitting position against the back wall of the corridor and raised the Dracon beam again. The bull thing was limping towards me, with a huge bloody gouge along one flank, cutting through the powerful shoulder. I wasn't sure I could get my feet under me, and the monstrous dark creature was bearing down on me, looking awfully pissed about the wound my Dracon beam seemed to have made.

Incongruously, I noticed its horns sprouted up and across its forehead, looking like a silly parted hairdo. But that thing was huge, and picking up speed, and was heavy enough to crush me under its sharp hooves, and the polar bear was lurching beside it, one paw all bloody, I guess from my first shot. The bear's face with all gashed up and there were shards of the screen sticking into the fur.

{Mine!} I heard a thought-speak voice, with the slightly different feel that meant it was being broadcast to anyone in range. The bear held up with a shrugging motion, and the bull bore down on me. I fired another Dracon beam but it was too quick and too close. The beam struck another oblique blow, and the bull lowered its head, tilting it to the side, to let the tip of one horn dip low, and I winced as it struck my gun arm, tearing open the …bicep, I guess… and sending the ray gun which seemed so puny in face of that inexorable bulk, flying.

But an oblique shot with a Dracon beam is still a powerful thing. It had carved another semi-circular furrow in the monster's neck, and I lunged up with my good arm, plunging the wrist blade into the open wound and tearing at its throat. Where I might never have made the cut through the tough hide from such a bad angle, the rent opened by the Dracon blast let my blades sink into the softer tissues beneath. I was rewarded with a choked off bestial scream, and a bubbling gust of foamy blood spilling onto my chest. Then the full weight of the bull plowed into my, smashing my chest hard, and slamming me into the wall I had been sitting against. My right arm, already torn by the fangs of the cat, and the horn of the bull, was pinned and crushed. I screamed myself as the bones were crushed and splintered, and the rest of my air flew out of my body and my ribs buckled and snapped with the impact of the wounded beast. My free arm, with which I had dealt the death-blow, was horribly wrenched and twisted as the dead weight shoved it back, and as the bull slumped down to my lap and gave an agonizing, choking breath, I realized I was pinned and helpless, with a polar bear looming over me.

{Demorph, fool!} the bear thought-spoke, and the bull twitched, and the suffocating bulk began to shrink, twisting and melting as he tried to return to his natural form. I flailed ineffectually with my ruined limbs – it seemed my legs would not obey me at all – and every breath was agony. I could barely get any air as it was, and I knew I had to demorph too, or die.

I began the change myself, but I knew I would not finish before the Controller demorphing atop me, and there was still the wounded bear. And something else nagged at me. Wasn't there another cat? From the corner of my eye, I saw my own cat, except it was part human! Was that one also demorphing? But no, it had had a head start, demorphing even before the bull had hit me. Now it was morphing back to – it had to be a lioness. That was just too big for a mountain lion or anything else. A lioness, a polar bear, and another lioness unaccounted for. As I finished returning to my human shape, I saw the bull was a human man, not big, but wiry. He would probably be at least my height standing up, and had a man's muscles, while I had not pushed my body in years. You just can't jog or shag flies when you're blind, so I hardly had the athletic physique of my softball-playing youth. I probably could not take this controller in his human form, let alone if he morphed again, much less taking into account his three buddies. _Where _was_ that other lion?_

{She looks like the other one} I think it was the bear's thought-speak voice as he bent over me. {Perhaps there is some relationship?} The demorphed Controller crouched on his hands and knees, glaring at me, and the lioness circled closer.

The demorphed Controller snapped "I don't care, you got the other one, so this one is mine…" Almost before the words were out of his mouth, he began changing, his skin darkening and horns bulging out over his forehead.

I struggled to change, myself, but I was exhausted. I was really new to this morphing business, and in a few hours I had morphed a hawk, a Hork-Bajir twice and been injured as many times, and now I just couldn't summon the will to force my body through the change again so fast. I tried to scrabble feebly out of the way as the three Yeerks gathered around to see me dead. And strangely, still the thought bounced around in my head _Where is the second lion?_


	7. Chapter 7 Death on the Blade Ship

Suddenly another thought-speak "voice" ripped through all our consciousness {Hey, you dropped this!} A golden shape hurtled through the air, crashing down on top of the still-forming bull. I thought it was the lion pouncing, but when the bull-thing collapsed under its weight, I saw it was a badly mauled and bloody lioness.

The lion I had fought let out a screeching howl, sounding like a startled woman, and flailed her feet on the slick floor as she tried to turn back into the bridge from the now-crowded hallway where I lay helpless. The polar bear reared up and tried to turn, managing the job a little better, but was knocked off his feet by a brown whirlwind.

I desperately rolled to the side as the two bears crashed down into the hallway. The polar bear tried to fight back, but the new bear had the upper hand and was not giving up. One paw smashed into the bloody burned limb of the polar bear, pinning it to the floor and drawing a bellow of pain, and the other dark paw ripped into the pale throat, with the brown jaws closing on the lower jaw of the morphed Yeerk. The Controller's one good paw batted ineffectually at its savage foe. There was a sickening crack and the newcomer pulled back as the polar bear's jaw hung loose at an unnatural angle, distorted out of shape, and ruined.

The grizzly bear rolled its weight forward, putting more of their combined weight on the Yeerk's ruined limb, and leaving it to fight off two sets of long, cruel claws and a roaring mouth full of fangs with a single paw. The Controller's neck and throat were soon torn wide open. {You fight well too, _Yeerk_} The bear sneered sarcastically, throwing the words like a weapon. {You just get distracted too easily.} The polar was frantically trying to demorph, when the new bear struck out and ripped open its misshapen skull with one blow.

The first lioness had recovered her balance and now hit the grizzly on the flank. The massive bear just spun with the blow, left paw swinging around to tear open the lion's spine from hips to neck and continuing the momentum of its leap to drive the savaged cat into the bulkhead. The lion slid limply down to the deck and lay in a boneless.

The bull had completed its morph, desperately heaving the other dead lioness off its back and neck, and finally getting its feet under the massive body, and lurching upright, hooves clattering ineffectively on the hard surface of the deck.

I gulped air into my lungs and cried – or more likely, croaked – out desperately "Look out…" but I didn't need to bother. The bear, seeing the lioness collapse had casually turned back to face the last foe, and as the beast threw up its head in a gesture of aggression, the bear's right paw swooped down and up in an uppercut. The bull lowering its head to charge, put the claws coming up, and then the bear was heaving the still-unsteady brute off its feet by the chin. The bear then pounced, savaging the Yeerk with tooth, claw and bulk. The animal – I suddenly recognized it as a cape buffalo, with one of those weird thoughts that pop into your head at odd or inappropriate moments – struggled desperately, and maybe with an even footing, it could have fought the bear to a draw or even won. But the bear had the advantage of surprise and had fought in a way no animal did. It simply tore into the wounded buffalo, slashing and savaging its body until it could take no more, and slumped down in defeat. The bear pulled back and then putting its full weight behind a single downward blow, crushed the buffalo's neck with an audible crack.

The gruesome task ended, the bear stepped off the carcass, and swung the huge, shaggy brown head to peer at me. It gave a kind of snuffling grunt, and leaned close to smell me. It did not seem to recognize me, so l lifted a trembling hand up to pat its snout gently. I was certain this was an Animorph, and I was even pretty sure which one. So I put my hand down and used it to push off the deck. I was covered in blood, and when I had morphed the hawk back in the valley, I had lost most of my clothes. I stood there in a pair of tights I wore under my pants against the chilly mountain nights, and a snug tank top, and faced down a specimen of one of the most dangerous animals on our planet, that had just killed at least four or five equally dangerous creatures, singlehandedly. I felt incredibly vulnerable, but at the same time I was confident, and a little desperate. If this was an Animorph, where were her teammates?

"Is that you, Rachel?" I asked, my voice surprising me with its steadiness.

She blinked a bit then I heard her thought-speak voice {Loren? What are you doing here?}

"I was looking for the rest of you. Where's Tobias?" I decided to hold off on the complicated explanations until I was certain that my son and his friends were not corpses on the bridge.

{Huh? Oh, they're on the Pool ship. I saw them all on the screen. They did it, I guess.} The massive head swung from side to side, seeming almost bewildered. Then the head began to shrink, and the brown fur sink beneath the surface of the skin. The bear reared up, but rapidly dwindled in size as it did so, giving the momentary impression of sinking backwards into the floor. Relatively soon, the transformation was complete, and in the place of the bear was a tall, pretty blonde teenager, who was still glancing around as if in confusion. "Wow, hey. It is you."

She turned to look back onto the bridge, and seemed to notice the shattered screen. "Oh, they're gone. Tobias was up there. He morphed human. I saw him. I told him…I … I got to…I …I was dead. I did it. I got him, Jake. Tobias told me where and I got him. It's all over, but I didn't want to go." She turned back and grabbed my upper arms. She was tall enough to look me in the eye. "I don't want to go, I'm not ready. I thought I was. I didn't think I'd be afraid…" She trailed off, blinking in embarrassment.

I eased her hands off my arms, and clasped one of them in one of mine, and started tugging her back up the corridor. "Rachel we have to go. It's alright, there's nothing to be afraid of. You got him and we can go. You got them all. We can go now."

She lurched forward a step and then jerked to a halt. "Go?"

"Yes, Rachel. We have to go home. We have to go back to the valley. Do you want to see your mom and your sisters? We can go back and see them and you can wait for your friend, Cassie, and your cousin, Jake, to come back."

"Mom? Oh, god." She stared into space for a second, and when I gave her hand another tug, she seemed to wake up. "Right, of course, you meant home…I thought…" She trailed off again, but was already walking down the corridor as fast as I could. She hurried after me. We darted past a couple of human Controllers heading for the bridge, and they turned as if to stop us, but without breaking stride, I called back "Hurry, they need your help, it's a mess up there! I have to get her to…" We turned a corner out of their site and I shut up. From there we hustled in the general direction of the docking bay, occasionally passing Controllers, but I didn't want to stop for a fight. I thought we had both come too close back on the bridge and I had a feeling that if we stopped, we'd get overwhelmed. I was sure I couldn't morph enough to do anything useful in a fight anyway.

We took a wrong turn, but I eventually found the place we had left the Bug fighter. Remembering at the last moment to check if I still had the morphing cube (I did), I climbed about the small ship, still tugging Rachel along with me. To my indescribable relief, Arbron was already aboard.

{What's this, Loren?} he asked. I made the introductions, but Rachel only nodded vaguely, still staring off at something a long way beyond the close confines of the small ship.

{Well, tend to her as best you can. The secondary command crew have taken control of the Blade ship and are preparing for z-space flight. The Andalite fleet may be arriving soon if it's not already here, and I would not like to travel any farther with this crew. Especially if one or both of you are responsible for the lack of a response from bridge.} He turned his attention back to the controls and the small fighter lifted off the deck and shot out into space.


	8. Chapter 8 Girl Talk

Rachel slumped down into a sitting position, once the Bug fighter was clear of the Blade ship, and continued staring at nothing. She looked a bit out of it, and I couldn't tell if she was afraid or hurt or anything. I crouched down next to her and reached out a hand to her shoulder. I stopped before making contact with her, though, not knowing if the touch would make things better or worse.

"Rachel, honey?" I brought my head down to peer at her face. She was still gazing into space, but she kind of jolted a bit and glanced around before meeting my eyes.

"Loren. Sorry, I was just…I didn't mean…What's going on? Where are we?"

"We're getting away from the Blade ship. Arbron says the surviving Yeerks are getting ready to flee the solar system so we had to go now. I just shoved you in, because you seemed kind of out of it."

"This is a Bug fighter," she noted, glancing around at her surroundings.

"Yeah, that's how we snuck on board. I guess you've been on these before?" I thought if I could keep her talking, maybe she wouldn't space out again.

"The last time was not long before we met you," said Rachel. "We stole a Bug fighter to infiltrate the Yeerk pool and rescue Eva." We tried to steal one back when Ax was still new to Earth, but that didn't work out so good." She suddenly frowned and gazed off into the distance again.

"You know, I keep having the weirdest sense of déjà vu about these things. I had this really weird dream once, where I stole a Bug fighter from the Blade ship and crashed in Cassie's yard by the barn. It was so strange. Cassie had started a cult and wanted to become a whale for good, Marco was running around without any pants and Jake got so wasted on a bottle of Bailey's."

"Wow," I said. I wasn't sure what this was about. Between her sudden lapse after demorphing, and now the very random dream she was detailing to me, I was starting to become really concerned. Had she snapped or something? Was that why she was on the Blade ship alone? Had she been wrong about the other kids? "That must have been an odd experience. Rachel, are you doing okay? I mean, this dream is interesting, I'm sure, but we're kind of escaping a really hairy fight right about now…"

"Oh, it was just that it's funny the kind of things you think about. Cassie had a friend who morphed into a whale forever, and I kind of made Jake get drunk in the dream. I wonder if it means I feel guilty about not being a better friend to her or a good enough soldier for him?"

She turned to face me again. "I guess I'm thinking about it, because this might be almost over, and that was the good part about that dream – the war ended. Ax and the Chee fixed the Bug fighter and we flew to the Andalite homeworld and helped the Andalites and the Yeerks make peace. We went home and they made peaceful contact with the government, and we were big heroes and got famous and then we all formed a band."

She reached out and grabbed both of my hands in hers. "Loren, until you fired that Dracon beam, that dream a couple of years ago was the closest I believed I would ever come to seeing a happy ending. For so long it looked hopeless and impossible. Every bit of contact we had with the Andalites just made us less and less confident they'd come to save us. And now, since we made this plan, that was the first slim chance we had of finding a way through this, to end this war and be safe. But the plan…I thought I was going to die on that Blade ship. I _was_ dead, or as good as dead, before you saved me!"

I gave a little laugh, like I thought she was joking. "Come on, Rachel! You saved me! All I did was annoy the Yeerks, and they would have had me dead if you hadn't…well…pulled them off me."

"When I killed them," she said. She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them, frowning down at her bare feet. "That's me. Crazy Rachel the killer. You need someone dead, you need someone to try a crazy, suicidal mission, you send good old Rachel."

She darted a look at me. "I mean, I'm not complaining, it's just how things are. I can take it, you know? It doesn't bother me as much as the others, and I like the rush. If someone has to be risked, it should be the one who likes taking risks, right?"

I couldn't think of anything to say to that. This girl, this warrior, who was part of a thin line defending our world for over three years, while the rest of the human race remained blissfully ignorant, talking about what sounded like a suicide mission, and defending it! Making a case for why she almost died! I just shrugged, still struggling with what she was saying.

She looked more earnest now, like she was trying to persuade me. "It had to be me. Jake had to lead the main attack, it was his plan. He needed Ax to hack the computers, and Marco to help him figure out how to deal with the Andalites. They're smart, they're good at figuring stuff out. Tobias, Cassie? They're the soul of the team, they're the ones with the ideals, the ones who care about us. You can't use them as assassins. It would be…I don't know, dirty or something. I was the best choice. The others, they were fighting to save their families, or because it was the right thing to do. They aren't in it for the rush, for the thrill of battle."

Rachel's voice dropped to a whisper. "They're the ones who deserve to live. They deserve to see the end of the war. I wanted to stay too. I didn't want to die, but someone had to do it. I was okay with it being me. I wasn't ready, but it was okay. It was a good fight, I accomplished my mission. I got to see them one last time, and tell…" Her voice choked off. "What do I do now? They're going to do it, they're going to stop the Andalites, they don't need me for anything. It's like the dream, but I'm not going to wake up and I don't know what's next."

I eased down the rest of the way so I was sitting beside her, and slowly, carefully put my hand on her shoulder. "Rachel, I don't…I mean, I'm…"

"I'm not complaining!" she blurted out abruptly. "I'm glad you showed up! I'm glad I'm alive. Thank you, Loren, really, thank you for saving my life. It's just…I've spent the last day thinking this was it, and trying to brace myself and accept it." She gave me a sideways look out of the corner of her eyes. Her voice sounded more clear and together, like she was snapping out of her funk. "I promise, I'm not going to do something stupid, I'll be fine. Really, don't worry about me."

"Now you sound like my son," I grumbled, pretending to be annoyed. I was way more relieved than I let Rachel see, though. I remembered how my father had had trouble coping after he came home from the war and how it messed up our family.

Rachel got this dreamy, wistful kind of look on her face. "You know, that was another good part of that dream. Tobias asked me out on a date. We went to a fancy restaurant, and he put his arm around me and it was so nice. And after dinner we…" She got this embarrassed look on her face all of a sudden, and changed the subject. "So what were you doing here? Did you Tobias tell you, or Jake send you or something?"

"No, I got my memories back all of a sudden. I wanted to do something to help, so I found Arbron." I nodded up at the Taxxon piloting the small craft. "We came to the Blade ship to recover the morphing cube for the Taxxons."

My mom-brain kicked in and switched the conversation back to my new favorite topic. "So why do you dream about dates with Tobias? Are you…interested in him, that way?"

I guess I expected blushes or maybe evasion at the very least, like a normal 16-year-old girl. Instead, she smiled wistfully and said, "Yeah, pretty much. He's kind of cute as a human. And he knows me better than anyone else. He's not all that big on taking you to fancy restaurants, but I can always count on him to be there when I need it. I can't tell you how many times he's saved my butt like you did today. And he's such an amazing flyer. That's our favorite thing to do together."

She looked at her feet again. "He's like the only one who really thinks I'm good or nice. The others, they think I'm brave or crazy or tough or whatever. If you asked them to describe me, that would be the first thing they'd say. Tobias is the one who gets what it's like to have a side of yourself that you need, even if you aren't really proud of it."

A fierce & determined expression passed over Rachel's face. "Well, I'm _done_ with that part! If Jake's plan worked, this war's going to be over. If you guys got the morphing box back, we can offer the Yeerks a way out, and we can stop the Andalites from wasting Earth. We don't need to kill anymore, we don't need to fight! We can just be normal again! Whatever that means…"

"It's whatever you want it to mean, Rachel," I said, giving her a little squeeze. I got the feeling she wasn't really a hugging sort of person, but after a moment she relaxed a little, accepting the comfort I offered. "Normal means you can be a kid and figure out what you want out of life."

"I want to give up the life-and-death choices. I want to stop being the one who does the killing, and seeing the bodies and blood when I close my eyes. I want more nonsense dreams and fewer battle replays. I want Cassie to go back to fussing over her animals and being too shy to say anything to Jake, and Marco to complain about video games and Jake to stop worrying about us. I want Ax to be able to go nuts with his human morph in a food court without worrying about Yeerks getting suspicious. I want Tobias to take his killing side and put that away like I'm gonna, and just be a kid again." Now she looked sad for some reason.

"I don't know what he's going to do, Loren," she confessed. "Do you think he'll stay human for good? I mean, now that he's met you, he has a real family, right?"

"I hope he sees it that way," I said. "If he wants it, he's more than welcome in my life. I want to be a part of his. But he grew up without me. He might not want that or it might be too late for us to do anything about it." I hoped not. I had missed most of his childhood, but I still felt that powerful attachment. I was starting to feel more strongly toward Rachel, too. Hearing someone talk about your son like he's something special is a pretty good icebreaker. And she had been fighting alongside him for a while now, maybe she could help me…"Do you think he'll want to be human again?"

"I don't know," Rachel said again. "I've tried to talk him into it, but he was even more determined to fight this war at the beginning than any of us, and he totally refused to back out of it. I mean, now he can be normal, but I think he's more used to being a hawk, and normal human stuff feels weird to him. And if he stayed human, it would be forever. He'd have to trap himself in his human morph. I wouldn't want to give up flying myself. For him, it would be like having to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life."

I suddenly wondered if maybe the Ellimists or whoever was running things, were trying to make things work in my family's favor for once. "What if he could be like you and me? You know, human most of the time, and able to turn into a hawk for a couple of hours. Do you think he'd be okay with trying that out?"

"Well, sure," she replied. "But there's no way to make that happen. If the Andalites know how to do it, Ax would have mentioned that by now. Tobias is like, his best friend or something."

"Well, actually," I began. "It turns out the Yeerks might have discovered something that can help there." I went on to describe the research Arbron had discovered when we stole back the blue box.

Rachel's face was lit up with hope. "That would be fantastic, Loren! Do you have that box?" At my nod, she went on. "Oh, he _has_ to! He will, I know it! There's no war to give up, he can still fly and he can even go back to being a morph-capable hawk if he hates being human that much!

"He won't, though," she said, that determined look crossing her features again. "I'll make him like it!"

I smiled and hugged her again with one arm. "That sounds like a plan. You get a boyfriend, I get a son, everyone's happy."

"Speaking of boyfriends," Rachel smirked. "I have to know…How'd you end up with Elfangor?"

"You know about that?" I asked with some surprise.

"I know he's Tobias' father. I'm pretty curious about how that worked out for you guys."

So I told her the story, about getting abducted by little gray men, and rescued by the Andalites. How my first encounter was with the two smallest Andalites sent to board the tiny rooms and hallways of the Skrit Naa ship, Arbron & Elfangor. How we were sent back to Earth with Prince Alloran and how he diverted to recover the Time Matrix. How Elfangor and I used it to create a world, and then return me to Earth, where Elfangor took on a human form in order to get away from the war and death and loss for a while. How we married and then our lives were rewritten by the Ellimist.

She listened with amazement, of course, and a lot more comprehension, that I would have expected. Then Rachel filled me in on some details. I was astonished, though it should not have been a surprise at this point, to hear that Elfangor had crash-landed on Earth, right in front of these same kids, and given them the morphing power. When I wondered if he had known Tobias, Rachel said she thought he might have, but she didn't go into any details about Tobias and Elfangor and how the Animorphs had learned of that relationship. I understood. That was for Tobias to tell me when he felt comfortable.

Who would have thought that the first person I told all this to had actually encountered Alloran in a brief moment when he was not infested as well as used the Time Matrix itself and met the Ellimist? And apparently started dating my and Elfangor's only child, and been friends since childhood with the daughter of Chapman, my fellow kidnapping victim & Andalite rescuee. I wondered suddenly if the Andalite decision to write off Earth had anything to do with reports of his treachery circulating among them, or if they thought I had enticed Elfangor to desert and that all humans were capable of corrupting Andalite heroes.

Anyway, I was saddened to hear a confirmation of what I had suspected, that my husband had died. At least he got to meet our son, and I liked to think the heroic actions he took to protect the five strange alien children he had just met had something to do with his recognition of our child. I also learned I had a brother-in-law in young Ax. I remembered Elfangor telling me how much his family had hoped for another child, but that it would take years for their hopes to be met, if they were. If he had not been able to be with me and our son, at least he got to return to his parents and meet his younger brother. I took what comfort I could from details like that for now. I settled down for the rest of the flight back to our hometown, hoping that someday soon, Tobias and I could discuss the extraordinary man from another planet who had changed both our lives so much.

**Author's note:** Rachel's dream is pretty much ripped off straight from the delightful story "Six Days the Animorphs Were Idiots" by Ifi of Cinnamon Bunzuh! What started off as a crackfic joking about the surreal clouds on the original books' cover art turned into a charming and amusing parody of the series. I discovered the fic when struggling with the conversations in this chapter, and I thought my homage to the story would be a neat way to nudge the conversation in the direction I wanted to go. As with my overall story, I intended this only as a respectful homage to the original author.  
You can find it on the "cinnamon bunzuh" website at blogspot .com, under "Ifi's fan fic." I can't put the URL here, for some reason.


	9. Chapter 9 Happy Endings?

_Three years later_

"Tobias! You left your books all over the coffee table!" I called up the stairs.

"Can you just leave them?" his voice came back down. "Rachel's coming over and we're going to study."

"Please tell me she's coming by car! You know how Champ gets when he smells eagle or catches her demorphing."

"Duh, Mom. She's bringing books."

They did that sometimes. They didn't go to the same college or take the same courses, but they did like to spend the occasional day, where neither of them had classes, hanging out together and studying. They even helped each other with their homework, which, it turns out, is something they'd been doing for years.

People familiar with the more famous Animorphs might be surprised at this. Why aren't they working to smooth over human-alien relations, like Cassie, putting their morphing experience to work, like Jake, or even just living the celebrity life like Marco? I guess that's not who either one of them is. Tobias got his GED after he became human, as part of re-establishing his legal existence, but Rachel insisted she hadn't worked for three years to keep up a decent grade point average while fighting a war just to let it all go now that the fighting was done.

Anyway, Tobias went to the community college and took a bunch of different courses. He was trying to find his place in the human world, and one way to do that was to figure out what interested him or what he wanted to do. I understand Rachel had her choice of colleges, but went to a University of California school near our hometown. She wanted to stay close to her family, and started taking pre-law and journalism courses, I guess to keep her options open to follow either her father's or her mother's careers, but I think she was still undecided.

Last summer, though, both of them spent a lot of time with the free Hork-Bajir colony in Yellowstone. Tobias is pretty much their favorite human there, and to Ket Halpack at least, Rachel is not far behind. She remembers Rachel helping Tobias to save her and her husband, and protecting their younger child when the Yeerks attacked their original valley. Rachel's mother actually works for the Hork-Bajir as one of their legal advisers, and Rachel got an internship with a public relations firm that helped Toby represent their interests to the human world. She turned out to be really good at it, and she's been thinking about working for them to help the Hork-Bajir full-time after she graduates. She and Cassie stayed close after the war, and with her friend's government position, they'd be all but working together.

Tobias seemed a lot more at home with the Hork-Bajir than with most of human society. As much as I've tried to help him the last few years, and Rachel and the other Animorphs have too, he never really did fit in and even though he's done a good job of making the change, I don't think he'll ever be entirely comfortable with a normal human life. He talked one time about joining the special branch of the ranger service that oversaw the Hork-Bajir portion of Yellowstone, keeping tourists in line, helping monitor the park for fires and trespassers and providing security. He really likes to feel useful, and that's something he can do and still be a human being.

I worried sometimes, right after the war, that he might go back to being a hawk, even trapping himself in the morph again. I know Rachel did. Now, though, I think he's satisfied with his choice to stay human. He doesn't spend nearly as much time in hawk morph as he did in the beginning, and we've adjusted pretty well to being a family.

I worried about that too. After all, I hadn't seen him in years, and even though I still loved the baby I had given birth to, who I remembered before the accident, a lot had happened to him since then, and I had not been there for any of it. He didn't remember even that much of our life together, and had almost fully grown up without me. But he seemed glad to come live with me and try being a mother and son again. He never acted like he felt trapped or out-of-place, and I've never seen a kid so eager to do chores around the house.

It took some getting used to for both of us, but we settled down into a comfortable life together once I got a new house and we moved in. Money wasn't a problem. Most of the people in our hometown received a lot of money from the government to replace homes and everything that was lost in the destruction the Yeerks caused in the last days of the war, so we got a place much nicer than the homes where Tobias and I used to live, a lot like the sort of houses his friends grew up in.

I was particularly insistent on this house, once I realized the location. It had been near the commercial part of the old town, close to where the mall that had been over the Yeerk pool used to be, but it was part of a brand new residential development that had been rezoned when the wreckage caused by the Yeerks was rebuilt. It was only moderately sized, and we could have afforded a lot nicer, but it was good enough, and I had a personal reason for wanting this one. Anyway, Tobias actually liked it, and seemed to take pleasure in all the little things most kids, most humans of ANY age, take for granted, like cereal for breakfast, sleeping on sheets and even using the bathroom.

One extravagance Tobias indulged in, which I can't decide if it is surprising or exactly what I should have expected, was to take flying lessons. He learned how to fly both planes and helicopters as a human. He seemed to find it a good reminder of what he liked best about being a hawk, while still being a completely human activity that wouldn't tempt him to get lost in a morph. Being one of the Animorphs meant that he had no problem obtaining the use of a plane, heck, he probably could have had a fighter jet for the asking, so he had plenty of opportunities to perfect his skills.

A few months after he got his license, Tobias took Rachel and me flying in a small propeller plane. Short of becoming a Controller or attacking a warship full of morph-capable Yeerks, I can't think of any experience I want to repeat less! Have you ever ridden in the backseat of a tiny single-engine plane, piloted by a teenaged boy who is showing off for a pretty girl? A boy for whom a 100 miles per hour dive is as ordinary as walking to the kitchen for a bowl of cereal, trying to impress a girl who is so infamously reckless that diving into a crocodile pit doesn't even make her top ten craziest actions? Put those factors together, and you get a plane ride there are no words to describe.

Imagine being able to look UP out the window of a plane to see a river, only a few feet away, because you're flying upside down under a bridge. Now imagine you don't HAVE to imagine it ever again, because not only have you personally experienced that, but you still wake up in the middle of the night thinking you're back in that plane and the only one who doesn't have a fish morph with which to survive a crash.

After the flight, while Tobias was turning in the plane and I was convincing my legs to hold me up, Rachel told me about this one time when she saw him ride wind currents and momentum from the top of a speeding police car to catch a helicopter in midair. She bragged about it like it was the coolest thing she had ever seen a boy do, and all of a sudden I understood a lot of the jokes Marco made about the two of them.

Rachel and Tobias did the celebrity thing with the rest of the group, Rachel more than Tobias, but the initial furor died down, I think Rachel was glad to go back to her normal life. I doubt Tobias would have tolerated more than a week of the A-list scene without his friends. Rachel was in almost as much demand as Marco for a while, though, if not more. She was the most photogenic and really charismatic, and almost as quick as Marco at the banter and panel discussions. Unlike Marco, however, she didn't really like repeating herself, and didn't have the patience for inane questions. A few incidents of snapping back at interviewers who pushed her buttons, or giving brutally frank answers about some of the uglier aspects of the war, and TV people stopped trying to change her mind when she refused their first offers.

She and Marco both tried to get Tobias to do more, claiming he deserved the spotlight as much as any of them, but his blank face, intense stare and terse responses made even Jake seem cheerful and light-hearted. I remember one comedian talk-show host spending fifteen minutes cracking jokes and trying desperately to chat Tobias up as the boy watched him stone-faced. He must have thought he had completely botched his interview and embarrassed himself in front of one of the world's greatest heroes. Then when shaking hands at the end of the taping, my son told the poor guy how funny he was and thanked him for having him on the show. That's when Marco gave up on trying to keep Tobias in circulation. I think he was secretly glad when Rachel started turning stuff down too. Marco was the unofficial spokesman and the celebrity face of the Animorphs, and I think all five of them liked it that way.

Their friends wrote books about their experience during the war, and after much persuasion on Marco's and Cassie's part, a lot of pushing from Rachel's parents, and even some encouragement from me, Tobias and Rachel got together and came up with a book between themselves. It wasn't as entertaining or popular as Marco's book, as successful or in demand as Jake's book, or as critically and scientifically well-received as Cassie's. In fact, it drew a lot of criticism and bothered a lot of people. It was a simple, bare-bones account of the war they fought against the Yeerks. They didn't embellish anything or downplay anything. There were no apologies or justifications of their actions. Both of them just put everything out there, kind of saying "This is what he did, this is what it was like for us. These are the kinds of people our friends were. Deal with it."

The other Animorphs came off pretty good in it, but in some ways they were bothered by the book too. I think Marco & Cassie really wanted to move on from a lot of the nastier stuff that had happened, and forget the strife near the end, while Jake still carried the guilt of all the actions he regretted. Naomi told me once that his parents thought reading Tobias & Rachel's book brought it all back to him. Many people who had not witnessed the war or even know about it until it was over, were horrified by the matter-of-fact way they described killing aliens and terrorizing the town and spying on people.

On the other hand, a lot of soldiers and veterans of that war and others, sent them mail most of which had the same basic idea, telling the kids "You guys get it." They were sort of proud of that, and I think glad to know there were other soldiers out there like them, but I just felt sickened that they had gone through the same sort of things as children that these grown men had endured. And they didn't come away unscathed, no matter how good a face they liked to show the world.

Those of us who had been in the Hork-Bajir valley with him could see the difference in Jake, and how much more at ease and comfortable Marco and Cassie were now that the war was over, but Rachel was more like her cousin. She had fought hard and taken on herself the role of the enthusiastic soldier, the one who balanced Marco's caution or Cassie's ethical misgivings with boldness and aggression. Tobias once told me that they actually waited for Rachel to call out "Let's do it!" before every battle or risky action they attempted. Rachel spent three years not permitting herself to show any doubts or fear. She never hesitated to do whatever the team asked of her, and threw herself wholeheartedly into every fight, not giving up until all their enemies were down or her friends were safe. You don't just turn off that kind of mindset and carry on like you did before, even after the war is over, no matter how sick of killing you might be.

But to almost everyone's surprise, Rachel managed. She woke up in the middle of the night sometimes or found herself losing her temper over ordinary things, but she worked through it. I knew about this stuff, because Tobias was the key to it. He and Rachel stood by one another and helped each other adjust.

When his human life got too confining or confusing, he sought out Rachel, and when she felt like she was losing control or was back in the war again, she came to Tobias. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I'd hear a tapping on Tobias' window, and the first couple of times when I got up to look out my own, I'd see an owl swooping into his room. Other times, during the day, it would be an eagle landing in our backyard, or even Rachel showing up at the front door. Likewise, Tobias would sometimes just morph to a hawk and fly off. I got worried the first couple of times, until I realized that he was seeking Rachel out, just as she would come looking for him.

They'd talk their problems out together, or go flying, or even shopping at the mall. Being with Rachel around lots of strange people helped Tobias adjust to being human, and get past the feeling of being trapped in a flightless body, and it was something ordinary and normal for Rachel to embrace. Having done it once or twice, I don't see how shopping with Rachel can be relaxing, and Cassie agrees with me. It's like getting pulled along in a whirlwind, but that's Tobias – all the things about Rachel that intimidate or scare other people, are things he just finds amusing or cute. And all the odd habits Tobias has – the way he stares intently at everyone and everything, how he never makes facial expressions, unless he thinks to do it deliberately, that odd feeling that there's something not quite normal about him – never fazes Rachel for a minute. She always seems to know when he needs sympathy and when he needs a sarcastic remark to shake him out of his brooding.

Cassie confided in me that she worried about Rachel and Tobias being able to get back to normal more than anyone else on the team, but I guess she didn't count on them having each other to lean on. The funny thing is that if you didn't know better, you might not guess from watching them together how strongly they feel or how much they rely on each other. They aren't like most teenaged couples who can't keep their hands off or can't stop staring into one another's eyes.

But most teenage relationships aren't as solid as theirs. Those relationships are based on superficial attractions, but Tobias and Rachel grew acquainted as members of two different species and they learned to care about each other by fighting side by side and depending on each other for survival. Their relationship was built on feelings, not hormones, and they don't seem to need to go around proving it to everyone watching them. Rather than stare into one another's eyes, they watch each other's backs.

They seem to be good for each other, and that's all I care about any more. I think Naomi and Dan feel the same way. At Rachel's last birthday party, I heard them jokingly refer to Tobias as the boy of their family, and I know I've come to care about Rachel like a daughter. Naomi actually made some comment to me not long ago about our mutual future grandchildren. I imagine that'll happen someday, but I'm in no hurry. They might have been through stuff that made them grow up early, but they're still kids, and maybe more than most kids, they deserve to slow down rather than rush to each adult milestone.

It's reasons like that which keep me from worrying about what they are going to do with the rest of their lives. All the Animorphs are smart, tough and brave people, especially my son and the girl he loves.

After Rachel had come over, we exchanged the usual greetings before she and Tobias settled in to study. I was in the next room sorting through the mail – another letter from a would-be ghostwriter with a book proposal; I had told Tobias' publisher to stop forwarding these things to me – when the doorbell rang. I went to get it, like I normally did, so the kids wouldn't be interrupted, and I passed through the living room where they were studying.

Rachel was sitting on one end of the couch, her books stacked neatly around her, and Tobias was sprawled out on the other end, one leg over the arm, with his textbook propped against it. Sometimes he got uncomfortable doing ordinary human things, like holding a fork or sitting on furniture, but other times he completely embraced the luxury of sinking into a cushioned seat, instead of perching warily on a tree limb. Today was a good day, where he was at ease in his human skin. It might have been my imagination, but I thought those days were coming more frequently and for longer stretches at a time as the months and years went by. I smiled at the sight as I stepped into the foyer to open the door.

I didn't realize it, but that might have been the last completely happy smile of my life.


	10. Chapter 10 The More Things Change

I pulled open the front door, and was startled to see the big young man standing there, "Jake," I exclaimed. "This is- wow. Come in…" I stepped back to let him in. In three years of knowing him, he had never just stopped by. I had never seen him except at the occasional family party for Rachel, since I mostly avoided public Animorph functions, and he seemed to avoid everyone and everything else.

He stepped inside with a grave expression on his face, but there was a hint of something else in his eyes that I couldn't really identify. "Hello, Loren. It's been a while hasn't it?" He cleared his throat and looked around. "Um, is Tobias here? I need to talk to him about something."

"The living room," I replied, gesturing at the archway. "He and Rachel are studying."

"Thanks." A quick smile flashed over his face and disappeared like it was never there. He still seemed much older than his years, and it was worse now that he was plainly a grown man, instead of a teenager with a thousand-yard stare. I couldn't help feeling a creeping feeling down my spine, like I _knew_ he came with bad news.

I listened at the doorway while he talked to the other two Animorphs. Rachel's greeting was cheerful as usual, maybe a little more so – she and Cassie and Marco often tried to shake him out of the funk he seemed to have been in since the war ended, or since his brother…died.

Tobias told me once that he believed Jake had used his family as his cause, the thing that you think of when the fight gets tough and you need a reason to go on. He fought the war to preserve his family, especially to rescue his brother, and it ended with no hope of ever reaching that goal. Tobias said that since the day his parents got taken, Jake was never the same, that he just wasn't functioning right without the thing he fought for.

I remember asking Tobias what his cause was, why he fought. He told me, "The others. Rachel and Ax and all the rest. I started out wanting to stop the Yeerks and save the planet, but that didn't last long. Real soon, it was just about protecting my friends and keeping them alive."

I think that explained why Tobias was less enthusiastic in his greeting to Jake – for him, the Animorphs and the war were all about protecting one another, looking out for and being there for each other, and Jake had betrayed that whole notion when he sent Rachel off to die. The fact that she survived was besides the point – no one had any idea that Arbron and I would show up, and even she and Jake had believed there would no escape for her.

Jake had, in Tobias' eyes, betrayed the group when he did that to one of their number. I think if it had been any of them, he might have been as mad. For Tobias, family meant protecting the other family members, not sacrificing them like pawns in a chess game.

If Rachel had actually died…I can't imagine what that would have done to him. To lose Rachel any other manner would have hurt him badly. To lose her to Jake's command that way? He'd have lost his friends, his _family_, along with her. I believe he had mostly forgiven Jake for sending Rachel after Tom, but it would be a while yet before he could bring himself to trust again the man as he had the boy.

Tobias sat up straight and listened with that intense raptor gaze he never lost after all these years of being human. Rachel had her bright mocking grin as she leaned back to hear her cousin out, but it slipped away as she talked, and her posture tensed up.

Jake described a meeting with several Andalite officials and how they had found a single survivor of Ax's ship. Somehow, even after remembering Elfangor, it was hard to think of him as my brother-in-law. He was just another one of the kids in my eyes, Andalite Prince or not. I could still hear his voice is the permanent blackness I had once lived with, explaining in overly precise terms how dangerous and menacing a juvenile delinquent he was pretending to be to get close enough to morph my dog. When I had first recovered my memories, it was hard to look at his true form without seeing the young Andalite I once fell in love with, who had looked so much like him.

That's why my stomach felt like lead. Even _I_ wanted to go help rescue him: I couldn't imagine Tobias not agreeing. Somehow I knew that was coming. I watched Jake explain the situation, and the arrangements with the Andalites to 'steal' a ship and I saw how animated and lively he got as he talked, in a way I had not seen him since before the war ended. Rachel was sitting closer to Tobias, and they were holding hands, listening intently, asking Jake questions about his plans and the timing. I hated him right then for a moment, knowing that he had come to take them from me. _At least he's going along this time, instead of sending them as a sacrifice,_ a nasty part of my mind thought.

No. It was going to be fine. They were smart, tough, capable, brave kids. They loved each other and would protect each other with their lives. Somehow, someway, they'd come back. They'd rescue Ax, Tobias' best friend, the long-hoped for little brother of my husband, Elfangor. They'd come back to Earth soon and take up their normal lives again, the lives that all of them had built from the wreckage the war had made of their old ones…that all of them had built, except Jake.

Jake, the hero. Jake, the general. Jake, the Yeerk-killer, who had been transformed by the war from a regular kid with an ordinary life into a leader and a military commander. In his book and in conversations the kids remembered, he had expressed concerns that Tobias had nothing but the war, and Rachel was becoming addicted to the fight, but it suddenly occurred to me to wonder how a teenage boy with no psychological training could come up with that conclusion. Maybe he was spotting in his cousin and his friend the things he saw in his own heart and mind?

I knew, right then, with a cold certainty that was it. Seeing an edge to his actions, a snap in his voice and a spring in his step I had hardly seen in the last three years, I knew he was feeling more alive than he had since life went back to normal and there were no more crises for him to handle. Sure he wanted to help Ax, but that was as much an excuse to dive back into action as a compelling reason to leave his home and family again. _And he's taking _my_ kids with him. He can't get a real life, so he's going to wreck theirs, just to have a purpose again. He's bringing them with him on this forlorn hope because he needs a team to lead! After all, that pressure he got addicted to won't come back, if he doesn't have other kids' lives hanging on his decisions!_

When Jake left, Rachel and Tobias talked quietly together. I barely noticed him go, lost in my own thoughts and worries. They had taken such a dark turn, I could barely bring myself to nod in a civil manner when he said goodbye. Tobias and Rachel came into the kitchen where I had retreated and sat down at the table with me, one on either side.

Tobias broke the silence. "Mom, we have to go. It's Ax. For years, he was all the real family I had. He called me his _shorm_, that means someone he trusts to hold a blade to his throat. If he called out for Jake, he's counting on me to be there when Jake comes to rescue him." Rachel nodded. They both looked concerned. Rachel seemed to have a shadow behind her eyes, and I remembered what she said the day we landed safe on Earth after escaping the Blade ship, that she was done killing.

The best way to young man's head is to his heart, so the better part of me, that was sincerely concerned about this girl I cared for like my own, and the treacherous, selfish part that was willing to ignore anything else to keep my boy safe and happy, combined to take her hand, look into her eyes and ask her if she was really sure about this. A glance at Tobias, and twitch of my head at Rachel to ask him silently if he really had to put her through this. He realized what I meant, and I saw a moment's doubt seep into his eyes, but Rachel ended that. "We have to go!" she said suddenly, fiercely.

Her shoulders slumped a moment, then picked up. "He's our friend, Loren. We've been through too much with him, he's our family, and yours, too. "

"And neither of us is sneaking onto a Yeerk ship without the other one again," Tobias said firmly. She gave him a reckless wild grin as their eyes met, and they both turned back to look at me again. "We'll be fine, Mom. We handled the Howlers, and the Hork-Bajir world, and time travel just fine. I saved the king of England from a Yeerk assassin and I killed Hitler. Next to that, what's a bunch of Yeerks on some old Blade ship? Please!"

I could tell he was putting on a front to reassure me, and Rachel was nodding along for the same reason, but I also knew I'd never talk them out of going. Worry for Ax, and maybe even a little pity for Jake, was going to take them on yet another mission. I floated the idea of going along – It wouldn't be my first interstellar rodeo, and I was as morph-capable as they, but they both stomped all over that idea as fast as they could get the words out.

"I don't want to worry about you, Mom."

"It wouldn't be the same thing, Loren. We have this whole team thing going on…"

"We need to know there's someone to come back to, that someone's looking out for Earth."

"I know you'll be there for my mom and my sisters, right?"

"Cassie's staying too, not because she wouldn't come, Jake's making her stay to take care of what we won. So you know, there's that."

I gave in gracefully. I promised Rachel I'd keep an eye on her family and Cassie. I assured them that I'd look up the Chee if I ever needed their help, and check on the Hork-Bajir and all the other things they tossed out as reasons why I should stay home. Then they left, to say their goodbyes to Toby and her mother, and wrap up their minor affairs. Jake was apparently going to recruit Marco and Arbron had already agreed and was waiting with the other former Andalite, from Ax's crew.

If it wasn't for their friend being in danger, if it was any other mission for the Andalites, I'd have been pitching a fit and threatening to call the TV networks and expose the scam. What did their talents – basically just turning into animals – have to do with exploring outer space? At least they'd have a couple of teammates who knew spaceships and technology.

Tobias came home later that afternoon. We spent the rest of the day casually chatting, just spending time together before he had to leave. Rachel was apparently doing the same thing with her mother and sisters. They were all going to meet up at Marco's tomorrow after tying up any remaining loose ends, and plan their "hijacking" of the captured Yeerk vessel.

All too soon it was time to say good night to my son, maybe for the last time, and turn in. I was exhausted from the tension and worry that had racked my nerves since Jake appeared that morning, but I couldn't sleep, tossing and turning until well into the night. I thought I heard his window open at one point, and saw a shape that might have been a hawk pass by my window, but I stayed in bed. There was no point in chasing after him – he plainly wanted to be alone, and without a faster bird morph, there was no way I would catch him.

I woke shortly after dawn to hear wings and a scrape of talons on the perch outside Tobias' window, and Champ springing to his feet with the wary tension he always felt when Tobias (or Rachel) entered the house that way. I bounded out of bed, then calmly but quickly darted downstairs to start coffee and breakfast, hoping to induce Tobias to stay for the length of a meal at least. He came down shortly after me, and sat at the table. I made him eggs and cereal and he seemed to savor every bite. Rachel appeared a few minutes after he started, with a warm greeting for me and a quick smile at Tobias, which he returned in that deliberate manner he has, when he makes his face form an expression for someone's benefit. I didn't really think there was anyone beside Rachel and me who saw those smiles touch his mouth, and he seldom bothered even for us. I didn't ask why they acted so casual, as if they had last seen one another 15 minutes ago, instead of the 15 hours since he had come home yesterday.

We chatted about little things, until he was done eating and Rachel had finished a cup of coffee, and then it was hugs good-bye and they strolled out the door together. I avoided looking out the window until a pair of thought-speak voices bid me a last farewell, and I stepped outside to watch a red-tailed hawk and a bald eagle flap their wings to rise above my yard. I stood on the step waving good-bye long after they had caught a thermal up and soared out of sight.

Champ padded out, toenails clicking, and leaned against my leg. I squatted down beside him to rub his flank, without taking my eyes off the point where the raptors had disappeared into pinpricks against the clouds.

"Looks like it's just you and me again, boy." He panted a bit. "I guess you won't have to freak out when birds come flying into the house for a while, huh?" I held his face in my hands as I glanced down at him again, and kissed his nose. Then I burst out crying and hugged him for a while, before pulling myself up to go and face the day.


	11. Epilogue Families of War

_11 years later_

I sat very still in the conference room. I had no idea what I was going to hear today, but no matter what, I couldn't see how it could be good. Yesterday, someone from the Department of Extraplanetary Security had called my house and asked me to come to the local office in town. Since the Second Alien War, that Department, or DXS as it is known, has run just about everything important, and you just don't say no when they ask you to come. I was sure they didn't know I could morph, and I could escape if I needed to.

I had acquired cockroach and house fly morphs a long time ago. They're really good at surviving things if you want to stay in a war zone, and I had decided not to move away from the house, no matter what. Through the bombardments, the landings, the sweeps and evacuations, all of it, I stayed in the house I had lived in with Tobias for three years, just in case he might come back. I could barely afford the taxes anymore, let alone improvements and upkeep. I should have moved to a hab-space long ago, but it would have felt like abandoning him.

They had not bothered to tell me what this was about, not that the DXS needed to do that – if it was related to anything alien, they could do anything they wanted. I had a feeling though, just from a glance at the other people who shared the room. Cassie sat anxiously in a seat near the front, her boxy suit obviously well-made and tailored but unflattering and about three years out of date. She was the very image of a high-ranking official more concerned with function than appearances. As the Permanent Secretary for Alien Affairs, she was theoretically the most powerful person in the world, after the President, on all matters relating to aliens and alien cultures, but the practical reality was that the DXS had pushed aside the Department of Alien Affairs.

The DXS was only supposed to handle threats, while Cassie was in charge of all peaceful contact and dealings. Since the outbreak of the second war, however, just about everything to do with space and aliens was considered a potential threat, and ended up in the DXS jurisdiction. Cassie put on a brave face, but she needed the DXS to sign off on any policies she wanted to enact, any trips she took or official functions she performed – even on any employees she wanted to hire, promote or transfer in her own department. She had DXS agents following her around, supposedly for her protection, but I think they answered to the DXS lieutenant who was her security advisor. And I think that low-ranking officer even told HER what to do sometimes. Heck, this meeting we were both attending had to be some alien-related matter, and as the most important official in the country, she was waiting with a bunch of civilians to hear what the DXS had to say.

Wearing a purple jumpsuit and fidgeting in the corner, was Naomi, Rachel's mother. She was currently serving three years in a minimum security facility for filing a brief with the Supreme Court against the DXS on behalf of Toby and the Hork-Bajir, trying to get them out of the "cultural exchange" camps they had been placed in at the start of the war. Technically, the charge was for disclosing national secrets during an emergency, but the only secrets she told were things that had been rumored for years about the experiments the DXS was performing on the aliens. She wasn't treated badly from what I hear – the DXS really doesn't seem to want power, or to harm humans any more than they think they need to, but they take their job really, really seriously. Naomi was a lot thinner, but that had been the case since her daughters moved out. She had thrown herself into her legal work, and I don't think she was taking care of herself even before she was arrested.

Dan wasn't there. He had been one of the hostages killed by the Enemy, when they had seized control of the TV networks during the war. His and Naomi's surviving daughter, Jordan, was there, but I guess her husband had stayed home with the kids. Cute boys. Jake and Marcus. Cassie's daughter, Faith Aftran Chambers, was living with her father, of course. He and Cassie didn't speak much since he won custody in the divorce. Peter was there with Nora. Eva had disappeared long before the war, and reemerged as a guerilla leader during the invasion. She and her group were captured and converted to the other side. Her body was found in an enemy uniform after the big counterattack that destroyed their planet-side beachhead. Long before that, Peter had gone back to Nora. Without Marco, Peter and Eva found they just didn't have much in common anymore.

And of course the Berensens were missing. About eight years ago, on the anniversary of the date Jake and the others had left, Steve had wrapped his car around a telephone pole near the cemetery where Tom's memorial had been placed. The medical examiner found his blood alcohol level at twice the legal limit, and he showed signs of severe opiate abuse. Two days later, Jean had lain down in her bed after swallowing a whole bottle of pills. Two more losses I had to struggle not to lay at Jake's feet.

So there we were, two not-so-young women, and four middle-aged parents, anxiously wondering what news had come of our long vanished children, sister and comrades. That was the only reason I could think of for all of us to be called together like this. About fifteen minutes after my own arrival, two soldiers in full combat gear entered the room, swept through checking all the angles, then one spoke into the comm-band on his wrist. Four large men and two women came next, all in suits with the visors that wrapped around their eyes and ears and marked out security agents the way sunglasses and coiled wire earpieces used to back before anyone knew about aliens, before our kids' fight that was now known as the First Alien War. The security personnel spread out to cover all angles of the room, and a silver-haired man came next, with two more guards following him, who took up position on either side of the door.

We all recognized him, of course. "Director Davidson," Peter stammered after a moment of silence, during which Cassie refused to meet the director's eye, Naomi clamped her lips together and gave him a glare that should have knocked him flat, and the rest of us sat dead in our seats, astonished to be in the same room with the man who ran the country, for all intents and purposes, as Director of Extraplanetary Security. "It's a huge honor to meet you, sir." Naomi snorted loudly, and Cassie, though too polite to say so out loud, looked as if she agreed with her lost friend's mother.

"I'm very sorry to meet you all under these circumstances," he began. His voice was naturally harsh, but he seemed to be trying to be nice. "With the current relatively mild threat situation, the decision has been made to downgrade the security classification on a piece of intelligence obtained during the fighting, at least to the point that it can be revealed to the next of kin of the identified personnel.

Of course. Word on the fates of the Animorphs. The only reason we'd all be called together here. The director went on to describe the discovery of the Andalites that the Enemy had launched an advance party into Andalite space not long after the end of the first war. That advance party had contained powerful weapons and high-ranking personnel, and it was believed to be capable of converting large numbers to the Enemy's side. This Enemy unit had base themselves in a part of space the Andalite forces did not dare enter, and had taken possession and converted the crew of a Yeerk Blade ship that had escaped after the First Alien War. They were preparing to spearhead an invasion, but were mysteriously destroyed. Something called a Saario Rip by the Andalites had brought the wreckage of the Blade Ship into Andalite space, where it was recovered with its log and computers intact. The last auto-log entry had been forwarded to the humans as a courtesy.

One of his henchmen set up a holojector and we saw what looked like a screen-view of a Blade ship's bridge. The human-looking crew was staring at a screen, which showed a smaller ship's bridge. Sitting at the controls on the screen was a Taxxon and a human I did not recognize. The apparent leader of the Blade ship crew said "So you come from the Federation, do you? And where is Captain Picard?"

"I have always thought of myself as more of a Captain Kirk," the human on screen replied after a glance to the side. He didn't sound like he knew what he was talking about at all.

In the ensuing dialogue, the human identified himself as a Yeerk, as did the Blade ship crewman. After some hedging and bluffing, the human on screen confessed that they had fled the Andalite fleet and that the Yeerk Empire was destroyed, that they had been searching for their comrades in the Blade ship. Then some more dialogue ensued that was all scrambled. The Director told us that it had been censored as it was "a non-pertinent exchange of classified information relating to the nature of the Enemy from the Second Alien War."

"This is the relevant portion," he added as a horrible sounding voice boomed out.

"..Step into view, Jake the Yeerk Killer. I know you are there, I feel your mind." Jake stepped out onto the view of the screen, as on the Blade ship, an adult Andalite moved up to face the other ship. Along with Jake, I could see Tobias, Rachel and Marco also coming into the field of view, glaring with horror at the Andalite. It had been changed – some hideous mouth-like opening had been added to the face so similar to my Elfangor's. It had to be Ax. The kids had gone looking for him and found – this.

I didn't care. I concentrated on staring at my son, in the back of the group. He still had that hard, blank expression on his face, and was directing that hawk-glare at the monster made of his best friend. He looked the same. Not much older than when he left, hair a little shaggier, maybe.

Jake asked the strange human if they could shoot, and his reply sounded like it would have been futile. He looked at Rachel and Tobias and turned to his best friend and asked him some private joke about crazy decisions, and Marco nodded with a sick expression. Then a strange, reckless wild smile crossed Jake's face.

"Full emergency power to the engines," he ordered. "Ram the Blade ship."

Someone in the room gasped. Maybe it was me. I stared at the image of the Yeerk bridge erupting into a panicked confusion, with the hideous version of Ax, standing there stunned. I only had eyes for the image of the Animorphs' ship, saw Tobias and Rachel share a quick look and reach out to grasp each other's hands as the Taxxon – Arbron, I suppose – jabbed at a control panel with his claws. A moment later, the image on the screen disappeared as fires and explosions broke out on the Yeerk bridge, and a section of the bulkhead suddenly ripped open, exposing them to space. The air and crew shot out the hole, and I could see the broken remnants of a smaller ship in the space outside, being consumed by brief flames as explosions tore it apart and were quickly snuffed in the airless void.

"Other sensory data from the wreckage of the Blade ship shows the smaller craft which rammed it was utterly destroyed," Director Davidson told us as the image vanished and his minion began packing the holojector. He went on with a speech about how the courageous and heroic sacrifice of our brave sons and daughter had bought the Andalite-Human alliance time to prepare and had prevented the Enemy from attacking us unawares. That the Enemy had proceeded more cautiously after the loss of the Blade Ship and revealed its nature to the Andalites, allowing them to warn Earth and giving our forces a fighting chance.

When he said something to Cassie about making their actions public, and promising his "personal and official support" for whatever monument to their heroic deeds she thought appropriate, I stood up. The guards tensed and looked my way, and the Director appeared a little startled. I had not said a word since he entered. I ignored them and walked to the door. The female guard stepped up to bar my exit, and I turned back to the director.

"Thank you, Director, for your information. I don't think I need to be here for anything else. I am sure that whatever arrangements Naomi and Peter wish will be fine." I stared at him, before adding "May I please go, or is there anything else you have to tell us?" He shook his head and made a gesture and the guards moved slightly, their new stance making it clear they would not stop me.

Back in my house, an hour later, after clearing all the security out of the building and catching transport home, I sat down with a book and cup of tea, but didn't touch either. I just kept thinking of Jake and how he had sacrificed his life and his friends right along with them. _I was right all those years ago._ I thought. _You were _happy _to find a way to go out with a bang. So what if you killed everyone who cared about you doing it? Big Jake, the Animorph-Killer_. There had been no need for all of them to die – he could have rammed the ship all by himself. The damage would have been the same if one crazy human or four had been aboard.

Deep down inside, though, I knew it didn't really matter. Even if they had stayed, the Second War would still have come to Earth. It would have touched Tobias and Rachel and probably Marco too. It had touched everyone, and they would not have been spared in the fighting. If you looked at it a certain way, maybe it was better they died holding hands in the company of their friends, rather than in the ruins of the lives they had tried to build after the war. Naomi and I had long ago mourned our daughter and son as lost, and she had mourned another daughter killed in the bombardments. Better than adding our mutual grandchildren to that list, or having to watch them die. Or better the kids had died young, before their careers or relationship failed. Maybe Marco would have gone broke and been one of those celebrity failures they used to profile on cable TV.

And maybe they would have survived. Maybe they would have found some better means to fight off the Enemy. Maybe Marco's money and his father's technological skills and his mother's tactical acumen, could have developed a superweapon, if that family had stayed intact. Maybe if Rachel and Tobias had fought the Enemy hand to hand or claw to claw, instead of as spectators on a hijacked alien ship, they'd have found some weakness. Maybe with their leadership, the International Morphing Command could have gone into the history books as the mission that stopped the Second Invasion at the beginning, instead of the heroic failure of their doomed assassination raid against the Enemy headquarters.

Maybe if I hadn't walked home alone that night as a girl, I'd have never been captured by aliens, and none of them, Yeerks or Andalites or the Enemy would have ever heard of Earth...maybe if I dug down the rest of the way below the basement of my house. My house, on the spot where Elfangor and I had come to Earth. Where a grove of trees once stood, which had later been zoned for construction that was never finished, when the Yeerks destroyed the town. My house, over the spot where Elfangor told me he had buried a powerful ancient device, when we had fled to Earth more than 30 years ago. Maybe…

END

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**Okay, author's note:** I don't want to explain too much, because if you need it, I didn't tell the story right. I just want to clarify my take on Jake's post-war issues, and why he's the same in my story as in the real books. My view is that while grief for Rachel and guilt towards Tobias played a role in his peacetime blues, I feel it was more about being adrift without the war and having trouble making the adjustment to normal life. I believe that was the point KAA was trying to make in her post-series explanation letter about the effects of the war. Loren pretty much narrates my view and reasons for Jake's reaction and why he does what he does on the last mission. She also explains my view of Tobias' disillusionment with Jake. Again, like I said about Jake, the loss of Rachel plays a part, but for Tobias, who stuck up for Cassie and Ax when they betrayed the cause by giving up the morphing cube and contacting the Andalites, I believe his view was teammates - first, the cause - second. When Jake sacrificed Rachel the way a general sacrifices a soldier, it violated Tobias' perception. THAT'S why I think he went off alone in the real series: Aside from the two teammates he was closest to being gone, his one-time hero had destroyed his "family". For Tobias, in book 49, families take a bullet for each other, they don't sacrifice members like pawns. Elfangor told him the Animorphs would be his new family, and Jake betrayed that promise. In my story, though the actions had a happier result thanks to Loren's intervention, Jake still committed the same betrayal, and still hurt Tobias. True, he's dealing better, thanks to the connections to humanity he did not have after the war in the books, but he's remaking his ideal family with Loren and Rachel, and Jake definitely is on the outside of that, as far as he is concerned.


End file.
